


The Placeholder Title of Awesome

by The_Blister_Pearl_Lady



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/M, Female Harry, Female Harry Potter
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-08-27
Updated: 2018-08-30
Packaged: 2019-07-03 02:02:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,474
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15809076
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_Blister_Pearl_Lady/pseuds/The_Blister_Pearl_Lady
Summary: An experiment. Most fanfics in my experience are works in progress. So I'm doing away with all pretenses and making this a work in progress. More detailed, sophisticated things like title, summary, and extensive tags will evolve naturally and organically as the story builds. Bonus: You want to suggest something? Go right ahead!Here is what I have so far:A fem Harry story, that is also a Tom/Harry, but with a twist. Preferred pairing and general idea aside, I'm not planning anything too deeply ahead. I'm just going to take fem Harry's story right from the beginning, when it all would have started changing for her, and I'm going to tell it from there. Where do I start? At the beginning: With conception.A study in the butterfly effect.





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings/Labels for this chapter: Character injury, Hurt/Comfort, non-graphic sex scene.
> 
> In which Lily, Sirius, and James are all nineteen years old and it shows.

Chapter One

Early Winter, 1979

Jets of brightly colored light sparked and flew across the snowy hillside like some sort of sick fireworks display. Boom, crash, another man down, like a puppet with his strings cut. It would have been funny if it weren’t so horrifying.

Darkly cloaked duelists had paired up and were fighting each other all over the battlefield, breaths coming out in mists before them, wands and jets of light flying. Sirius Black and James Potter were fighting an ugly little set of twins called the Carrows.

“Just think!” Alecto called gleefully to Amycus. “Two of the most famous Order of the Phoenix blood traitors in one sitting!”

“Wouldn’t the Dark Lord be pleased?” Amycus smirked.

“So who are you taking? The dumpy little hag or her half-dead twin?” Sirius asked James lightly.

“Hey -!” Alecto shrieked.

“Well, I do know how you love dumpy little hags, Sirius,” said James with the utmost dignity and respect.

Sirius smirked. “Thought you’d never ask,” he said, and made to face Alecto.

“Nothing will please us more than to have _your_ body at our feet, Black,” Amycus hissed at Sirius as James made to face him.

James raised his wand to Amycus’s face. “Then I’m afraid,” he said quietly, “that you will have to go without being pleased for a very long time.” At the threat to Sirius, some of the humor had left him.

But Sirius had barked out a harsh laugh. “Relax!” he said. “These two couldn’t hit straight if their wands were pointed for them -!”

But a vindictive, flushing red Alecto had narrowed her eyes and raised her wand before announcing dueling intentions. The end of her wand glowed with power as she pointed it at Sirius’s handsome face.

“Alecto, no, he’s Bellatrix’s -!” Amycus shouted in panic, his poise finally leaving him.

“Sirius, look out -!” James made to leap forward -

“Then let’s cut you down to my level, _Black,”_ Alecto spat out, and she fired a jet of crimson light out of the end of her wand.

James jumped in front of his friend, and instead of the curse hitting Sirius’s face, it hit James’s arm and shoulder.

James fell crumpled in a heap of growing blood against the snow. _“James!”_ Sirius shouted in instinctive panic, his face turning into a snarling, panicked rage. He looked up at the Carrows with hatred burning in his black eyes. _“Fuck_ you sick little cupie dolls!”

“Having problems, Black?” Amycus said, a wide sneer of a grin forming over his features, lowering his hand from Alecto’s shoulder. “Well done, Alecto. Nobody cares about Potter.”

Alecto giggled hysterically to herself. “I hurt your friend!” she cackled at Sirius, and as Sirius raised his wand, his face twisted with hatred, both of the Carrows raised theirs -

And then Frank Longbottom swooped in.

“Watch yourself, Sirius!” he called, raising his own wand and ensuring that the Order members and the Death Eaters were now two on two. “I don’t know if anyone bothered to tell you this before you enlisted only two years after graduating, but mocking a Death Eater is not always the safest thing to do!”

Sirius laughed despite himself. “But who told you to -?”

And then Lily ran toward them, determined, dark red hair bright against the white snow.

“Of course,” said Sirius warmly, smiling wryly. 

“Come on, James. To the Healer’s tent with you,” Lily breathed, slinging James’s arm across her shoulders and making to leave with him.

“Yes, Potter, to the Healer’s tent with you!” Alecto called mockingly, and both of the Carrows laughed.

James growled and almost made to leap forward, but Lily held him back. “I don’t have time for you,” she told the Carrows with quiet fierceness, and she walked off with James leaning against her, across the ground thundering with crashes and jets of bright light.

“How’s your wife -?” Sirius began, but Frank laughed.

“Oh, Alice? She can handle herself!”

Alice was fighting Severus Snape almost single-handedly off to their right, her thunderous face the picture of concentration.

Snape caught sight of Lily and he paused for a split second. Her red hair a curtain hiding her face, Lily wouldn’t turn and look at him. Then Alice blasted another curse, and Snape snarled, blocking it just in time and flying back into battle.

“I didn’t even get to use my Transfiguration,” James muttered, slumped bloody against Lily as they moved farther away into quiet, away from the battlefield. “I hardly call this surviving a battle with Voldemort.”

“It’s our third. And we’re surviving, just the same,” said Lily firmly. “Look. There he is, fighting Dumbledore,” she added solemnly.

Dumbledore and Voldemort were indeed battling on the center of the field. Even as they watched, Dumbledore transfigured up a great spiral sculpture of ice to guard himself and in a single shot of a greenly lit curse, his white snake-like face twisted, Voldemort blasted it away. Another battle was going on close to Voldemort.

“Is… is that Bellatrix Lestrange fighting Mad-Eye Moody?” James asked disbelievingly.

“She won’t leave _his_ side,” Lily explained simply, with a nod toward Voldemort.

“The werewolves aren’t here,” James realized.

“Remus said they wouldn’t be. He is our spy,” Lily reminded him. 

“Yes, well. I’m not sure that we trust that anymore,” said James, troubled, his eyes distant.

“That people in general don’t trust that? Or that you don’t trust that?” Lily clarified.

“People say he’s been in there too long, among them. No, I still trust him,” James admitted, almost as an afterthought. “I don’t think Sirius does, though.”

They had made it to the tent.

“I have to admit - I thought it would be Peter Pettigrew first in here, and instead it’s you,” said Lily, grinning and trying to make light of things as James lowered himself down bloodily on a bed inside. The inside of the Healer’s tent was an airy white space with big hospital beds, Lily’s domain, filled with bottles of potions and jars of herbs. A green fire floated magically in the center of the tent, keeping it warm.

But James had become unresponsive, turning inward, brooding. Lily frowned - and then went to the tent and peeked out the flap doors. She took out her wand and waved it once, and a magical charm of a Bubble appeared conjured before the tent. Echoing out from it was an almost invisible, ethereal shield, blocking the tent off physically and in sound from the battlefield.

Lily cautiously retreated her head back inside the tent.

Lily went over to James and lay him down. She put her wand over his injured arm and shoulder calmly and began healing him. He hissed and winced.

“As I thought. The cut is cursed,” said Lily. “I can get rid of the mark, but it’s going to take this and then some prolonged salve potion treatment. You’ll also have to swallow another potion, a rather nasty one, to make up for what you’ve lost in blood.”

“So I can’t go back out and fight.”

Lily looked up at him, unreadable. “No,” she said at last. “This is your wand arm.”

James let out a sharp breath and let his head flop back against the pillow.

“James, you can’t fight every battle to its end -” Lily began.

“But -!” James looked up, hazel eyes wide behind his round glasses.

 _“You can’t,”_ Lily emphasized, suddenly desperate and emotional, taking him by the hand, the light coming from her wand wavering for a moment. “You - if you try that, you won’t make it, and I can’t - _I can’t lose you,”_ she whispered.

James took her hand, looking up into her eyes. “We knew the risks when we signed up,” he said. “We decided it was worth it - for both of us.”

“But that - that doesn’t mean you have to go out _courting_ -” Lily looked down; there were tears unshed in her almond-shaped bright green eyes. Her voice had wavered. _“Damn_ me and my habit of crying when I get angry,” she managed out in a watery way at last.

“Lily,” said James tenderly, leaning forward. 

Lily’s spell finished, blinking away from her wand. “I - I have to go get the salve -” she began awkwardly, and then James kissed her.

In a desperate sort of way, she kissed him back, running her hand along his fine jawline, over his thin face and through his messy black hair. He had his hands in her hair. Coming to kneel over him, tenderly she massaged the mark that was still on his arm. He moaned into her mouth, and something seemed to leap through their chests between them.

Lily gasped and leaned back, eyes wide. “I - I haven’t been taking the potions -” she began.

“Relax. It’s the middle of a battlefield. Nothing will happen.” James smiled in fond exasperation. “Lily Potter forgot to take her potions one night -” he began in a mock solemn voice, and Lily giggled and shoved him.

“You are _ridiculous,”_ she said, and then she was kissing him again.

Soon they were moving together, and then Lily straddled James, topping him. She arched and gasped as he slipped inside her. They moved together, suppressing soft moans, watching each other - just watching each other. James’s eyes were wide and awed, Lily’s intent and tender as she softly caressed the mark still on his arm.

The act was almost totally silent, and went quickly - they knew what was happening just outside the flap in that tent. It was nevertheless an intensely tender love act. The two of them watched each other, eyes deep, mouths slightly open with effort as they moved together.

They came as one with soft moans, and when it was over -

Lily looked around and gasped. “I - I have to get back to work,” she said suddenly, face red and flushed, and still awkward, she moved quickly away and went to fiddle with something at her potions table. Reflexively, she reached an embarrassed hand up to her hair where James had been running his hands through it.

James watched her, lowering his hands and smirking. He hummed contentedly and smiled, closing his eyes and leaning his head back against the pillow. “I should get injured more often,” he said aloud thoughtfully to himself.

Lily whirled around, suddenly angry, and hissed, _“Don’t you dare.”_

James laughed.

Lily cleared her throat primly, straightening her hair and handing him two potion bottles. “Apply this one to your arm, swallow that one.” She pointed. “I would have administered the medicine myself, but because of your silly hair-brained idea, I’ve run out of time and now I have to go find more injured people.”

She marched to the door of the tent like she was still the brainiac in school, like she still knew everything. James had never loved anyone more intensely than he did in that moment.

“Lily.”

She turned back in surprise, tucking her dark red hair back behind her ear, innocent eyes wide and green.

“... Be careful,” said James seriously.

Lily smiled, eyes dancing. “Look who’s talking,” she said playfully, and left the tent. James smiled after her.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings/Labels for this chapter: Nothing except keep in mind that James’s parents lived to see Lily get pregnant, though not to see Harry be born, and that the Fidelius Charm on the Godric’s Hollow cottage was not created according to Fudge until a week before the Potters died. The cottage was also not the Potter house; it did not fit their vast family fortune, and it belonged to Dumbledore. This hints that the Potters probably did not move into Godric’s Hollow until a week before their deaths. 
> 
> This is contradicted slightly by Lily’s letter to Sirius in book seven, which hints that the Potters were living in Godric’s Hollow by Harry’s first birthday. Why bother to live in the cottage with no protections? As you will see, I am therefore going to make a compromise later on in the story, as Lily talks in the letter about conversing with Bathilda Bagshot like it’s a fairly new phenomenon. I am going to assume the Potters moved into the cottage around the time of Harry’s first birthday, and then the protections were added a bit later, for canon-based reasons I will specify. 
> 
> (Important Hint: Dumbledore in canon suddenly found proof very shortly before the attack that Voldemort had chosen the Potters as his targets. I’m sure you remember how?)
> 
> Anyway, confused about the timeline and passage of events overall? Not to worry. I’ve got it all planned out based on extensive canon research. Then I got to add in the fun bits like: Where did the Potters live before Godric’s Hollow, what does the Potter family home that Sirius mentioned look like, how does the Potter fortune play into that, what does the Potter fortune consist of, and how did James’s parents react to Lily’s pregnancy?
> 
> So for now, just sit back and enjoy.

Chapter Two

Mid-Winter, 1979

Lily, James, Euphemia, and Fleamont Potter were all sitting in the vast dining room in Potter Manor, having breakfast. Fleamont, James’s father, a little old aging and ill man with a pockmarked face, was talking stoically over his eggs.

“I’ll have to take a look at the Gringotts accounts. We get money from sales of the Pepper-Up Potion and the Skele-Gro Potion, but both have seemed a bit off in the last few weeks.” A healthy little house-elf in a tea towel like a toga stood on her tiptoes and put toast beside his plate. “The goblins might be taking something. You know I’ve never trusted them,” said Fleamont matter of factly.

“I acknowledge that while also acknowledging there are bigger problems at hand in the world right now,” said James cheerfully.

“And we would be worse off if we suddenly became destitute, would we not?” said Fleamont sternly. 

“Hardly likely,” said James, raising a skeptical eyebrow, a bit puzzled. “With a large, replenishing medicinal fortune.”

He had a point. The manor around them was filled with lots of polished mahogany, high ceilings, and open spaces. It carried a kind of rural, rustic air. There were big stone crackling warm fireplaces, warm and bright colors, and little things doing themselves in various parts of the room using magic. An old-fashioned radio said in the corner, “Next up, witching hour on -!” A grey barn owl on a gold perch hooted near the window. A Daily Prophet with moving pictures lay on the dining room table. A mirror near the wide set of wooden dining room doors was yawning to itself. Through glass doors out onto a patio was a big field and forest area out back for flying that carried the broom shed with its slightly open cupboard door. The forest and field was currently still evergreen and crusted beautifully with snow. Lily’s old, ruffled and grumpy-looking orange cat from her Hogwarts days wound around their ankles.

“You know your mother and I won’t be here much longer, and I don’t want to leave you two with nothing -!” Fleamont began fiercely, and then he bent over and his body was wracked with a hacking cough.

“Now, now, he was just kidding,” said Euphemia worriedly, a round-faced little woman with a bun of grey hair, coming over to wrap her shawl around Fleamont’s shoulders. But she was pale and ill-looking herself, and she shared a worried glance with James.

“Tilly, pass the toast and jam to Lily, so she can give it to Fleamont,” said Euphemia. The house elf floated the food down the long table. Lily took the plate and leaned toward the other Potters.

“I’m sure you’ll leave us just fine -” she began warmly -

Before choking, letting the plate clatter back onto the table, and rushing out of the room.

Fleamont’s coughing finished, all the Potters looked after her, puzzled. “What’s wrong with her?” Fleamont asked with crippling bluntness.

“We… think she might be sick,” said James, wincing. “She’s been really tired lately. Lots of nausea, vomiting. It hasn’t been pretty. She just… doesn’t like to worry you,” James admitted apologetically.

“And she just suddenly becomes nauseous like that?” said Euphemia, frowning, puzzled.

“Well… she says smells have been keener to her than they used to be. That smells she normally likes can upset her stomach. The jam, for example,” James explained.

Euphemia suddenly straightened, her face taking a darker tone. Firmly and with dignity, she marched right out of the dining room with her wand, leaving the two surprised men scrambling after her.

She ducked into the bathroom off the main entry hall near the staircase, where Lily had just finished throwing up. Wiping her mouth, Lily looked up in alarm from her place kneeling in front of the toilet.

“Sorry,” she said sheepishly. “Ironically, I think I might need a medicinal potion. For a Charms mistress and a Healer, I’m no good at taking care of myself -” But she had paused in surprise, Euphemia bending over her.

“I need you to lie down on the bathroom floor, right now,” said Euphemia sternly.

Still surprised, Lily slowly lay down as commanded. 

“If she attacks you,” said James matter of factly, “I want you to know that I’m a Duelist and a Transfiguration Master and I’ll still be no help at all. She’s my mother and she terrifies me.”

“Thanks, James,” said Lily flatly, glaring.

But instead, Euphemia had run her wand over Lily’s flat stomach. The wand glowed - and then a little puff of misty red smoke appeared floating over the wand. It carried the shape of the number four.

James and Lily both looked puzzled, but Fleamont’s eyes had widened. “Merlin…” he breathed.

“That - is a pregnancy test spell.” Euphemia looked up at Lily with intent eyes. “You are pregnant - in medical terms, about four weeks along.”

Lily paled visibly. She just lay there on the floor, stunned.

“But how -?!” James began, flabbergasted. And then he flashed back in his mind to that time in the battlefield medical tent, and his eyes widened. He, like Lily, had just realized how it had happened.

Their eyes met, wide and shell-shocked.

“I don’t know, James. I thought we’d taught you all about that,” said Euphemia firmly, marching away. “Now. I’m taking Lily up to one of the master bedrooms to relax, and I think we all need to separate for a while and figure out how we feel about this.

“We’ll come back together and talk,” she added sternly, “when we’re all thinking a good deal more clearly.”

-

Lily tried lying down in the crimson canopy bed surrounded by flickering candles - and then sat up, sighing and putting her feet on the floor, anxious.

“A _child,”_ she whispered to herself, staring at the floor-length curtained window before her.

Of course, she had always wanted to be a mother. But here was the thing: She hadn’t expected to become a mother at nineteen. During a war.

What if she wasn’t any good at it? What if it was all a disaster, or the child ended up scarred for life?

She realized that was the big problem for her. That she wanted the child was not the issue. Of course she wanted the child. But was she ready to be a parent? Would she make for a good one? Was this the right kind of world for a child?

She stood and put her hand on her flat belly, staring down at it, trying to imagine a tiny person forming down there.

“I know this isn’t the perfect reason,” she admitted aloud, softly. “But I do so want to meet you, and see what kind of a person you turn out to be…”

Lily frowned.

“But I’m also afraid of what kind of a world I might be bringing you into.”

This was the main point that got her thinking, though: Was any world perfect for bringing a child into? And were some things just worth the risk?

Despite herself, a burning excitement had formed inside her - at the prospect of having a child with James. She smiled to the air, uncertain, troubled, mixed and confused, and she wasn’t sure she should be smiling at all.

And if she was mixed… she was sure wild, rebellious James was doubly so.

I will have to convince James, she thought, that this is even a good idea worth discussing in the first place.

-

James stood in one of the morning rooms, staring out the sunlit window into the snowy afternoon, frowning, troubled and thinking. His hands were behind his back, his eyes unseeing.

“It’s a war,” he told himself. “We’re too young. It can’t happen.”

But he didn’t entirely believe himself even then.

Because then that little voice in the back of his mind retorted: What happened to you, Prongs? What happened to the brave Marauder of your Hogwarts days?

He entered a blood war, James told that little voice sternly.

But its echo remained, somewhere deep inside him.

What _had_ happened to the brave Marauder who would have killed to have a kid? Because James realized that part of him wasn’t gone. At the idea of having a child, especially with Lily Evans - he _did_ become instinctively excited. Felt a little like a kid again himself, in fact.

The real point of the thing was…

“I don’t know if I’m allowed to be this happy, either,” James whispered to himself.

He would have to talk with Lily. She must be worried sick right now.

I will have to convince Lily, he thought, that this is even a good idea worth discussing in the first place.

-

There was a surprisingly muted, subdued air to Euphemia and Fleamont as they sat quietly in armchairs in the front sitting room.

“... We’re lucky if we even get to see the child born,” said Euphemia quietly, her eyes sorrowful, downcast. She was hunched over tiny and frail in her shawls. Her hair was still tied carefully neat behind her. “Neither of us has much time left, do we, Monty?” A cough tickled her pale throat and she choked it back down.

“... They will be well provided for,” said Fleamont, attempting to sound tough and self-assured and gruff. “They’ll have everything -”

“But that’s not the same as us getting to know them,” said Euphemia. “And that’s assuming they decide to have the accidental child at all.”

At this, Fleamont was silent. The grandfather clock in the corner ticked away in the quiet.

“It sounds selfish,” said Fleamont at last, and it sounded like an admittance, “... but I hope they have the child. Not for them -”

“But for me,” Euphemia finished softly. “Yes. I know.

“It would be a nice idea as we leave, wouldn’t it?”

-

James and Lily met in the hallway above the main staircase.

“We should talk about having the kid!” they shouted at each other in panicked alarm as one. A confused pause. Then: “Wait, really?”

“You’re not frantic?” asked James.

“You’re not… ambivalent?” asked Lily, wincing.

“No, of course not!” they said indignantly as one. “Who do you take me for?”

They paused - and then bent over, laughing quietly to themselves.

Then Fleamont’s call came from the bottom of the staircase: “Well get down here then, we’re tired of brooding in the sitting room morosely by ourselves hoping you’ll decide to have the child!” He sounded exceptionally irritated. He coughed to himself as he shuffled back into the sitting room on the bottom floor.

“... Yes, Dad,” said James uneasily as Lily looked good-naturedly exasperated.

When they had all sat down, Lily began with: “What if we’re not any good at it? The whole parenting thing? We're so _young._ And what kind of a world is this to bring child into? I mean… is it worth the risk?”

She looked uncertain.

“If you feel you could love the child, most things are usually worth it in my experience,” said Euphemia bluntly. “Life is a series of taking risks over things that matter.”

“And… the other part?”

“No one expects you to be a perfect parent right away,” said Euphemia simply. “No one ever is.”

“It’s true… the part of me that agrees with Lily’s suggestion is trying to fight the part of me that wants to be brave,” James admitted. “It would just feel… weird, being so happy while everyone else is so serious and unhappy. I mean… the worst wizarding war in decades and we’re setting up a nursery?

“And what do we even do about that? We were fighting for the Order!”

“One thing at a time,” said Euphemia bluntly. “Do you want to have the kid, first?”

“Well, I just -”

“Answer your mother!” Fleamont snapped.

“Of course I want to have the kid!” James exploded, standing. “And not just because it’s the brave thing to do! I want to have the child because I want to have the child! But isn’t there more to it than that?!”

Both of the Potter elders were smiling. “Not really,” said Euphemia simply. “Everything else can be worked out.”

Lily suddenly stood eagerly, clasping James’s hands. “James. Let’s be brave,” she said, suddenly wild. “I want to have the child. Let’s have the child.”

“I… well, of course, I want that too…” James began, blinking, wide-eyed and curious. Then: “What… What the hell am I saying?! I’m having a kid! I’m having a kid!”

Thrilled, James pulled Lily into a hug, and Lily laughed, delighted.

“There we go. That’s the reaction most people are hoping for on the first take,” said Fleamont dryly.

James and Lily pulled apart and looked at them. “And… you two?”

“Of course we’d love to have a grandchild,” said Euphemia, smiling wanly. “Even if we might not be alive to meet them.”

“Well - hey, don’t talk like that,” said James, frowning and kneeling down before his mother.

She smiled fondly and ran a hand through his messy black hair. “Now, you know what you have to do,” she said sternly. “We have plenty enough for a family. But we’re not well enough to be caring for a baby. You two are going to have to stop fighting for the Order for a while. Do you understand?”

“... I don’t like it,” James muttered rebelliously. His mother gave him a look, and then he sighed. “Yeah,” he admitted. “If I want the child…” He looked meaningfully at his ailing mother. “Yes, I understand,” he finished quietly.

“Good. You take good care of that child,” said Euphemia sternly.

“I second that,” said Fleamont stoically from the corner.

“... I will,” James promised.

Lily looked sad and serious standing behind James, watching the little family. “So will I,” she promised. “I’ll do whatever it takes to keep them safe.”

They all slowly sat back down, letting out huge breaths, wide-eyed.

“What… what about names?” said Lily.

“Well,” said James thoughtfully, “we could name them after a Potter ancestor. One of those wealthy, ancient old famous wizards. I’ve always been fond of Henry Potter - he was a Muggle rights advocate.”

“Henry is too fancy and old a name,” said Lily in distaste. “I like Harry, the nickname, better.”

“So do I. It’s short, casual, relatable,” said James. “Harry would work.”

“And the middle name James, after his father,” said Lily fondly. “But… what if it’s a girl?”

Amusingly, it was as if James had never considered this possibility. “Well…” He looked flummoxed.

“I have an idea,” said Fleamont slyly. “The Potters are descendants of the famous wizarding family the Peverells. A Peverell daughter named Iolanthe married into the Potter family. Iolanthe is Greek for ‘violet flower,’ Greek of course being one of the old god Pagan languages.

“And the women in Lily’s family are always named after flowers, yes? 

“It’s like Harry - a name after an ancient Potter ancestor. And it fills Lily’s family name preferences, too.”

“But like Henry, Iolanthe is a bit too much,” said Lily skeptically. “No one is called _Iolanthe,”_ she emphasized. “Today, the Greek name for ‘violet flower’ is usually shortened…” She smiled. “To Ianthe.”

“Ee-Yan-Thee,” said James thoughtfully. “How is it spelled?”

“I-a-n-t-h-e.”

“I… actually like it,” James admitted, surprised.

Lily cheered. “Then we have a name!” she said excitedly. “But… Ianthe Lily wouldn’t work.” She wrinkled her little nose.

“Why not?” said James curiously.

“Two flower names, back to back? It just wouldn’t work,” said Lily skeptically. “No, Ianthe Potter needs to have her own middle name. How about…” Suddenly, she smiled, and looked over at Euphemia. “How about, instead of naming her after James, we name her after James’s mother? The woman who made us promise to protect her?”

“Hey!” James brightened. “I like that!”

“Oh…” said Euphemia bashfully, blushing. “Now, really…”

“Euphemia is a beautiful name, and it fits in perfectly with the rest,” said Lily warmly. “Ianthe Euphemia Potter. Ianthe Potter.”

“Or Harry James Potter. Harry Potter,” James reminded her. “You know… the names are so different -”

“But somehow they have the same sort of ‘feel’ to them.” Lily nodded. “Yes, I was thinking that myself.”

“Well.” Euphemia’s eye twinkled. “There is a way to resolve this all at once, you know.” She stood.

“Another spell?” said Lily in dry amusement.

“She didn’t go through all that pregnancy shit for nothing,” said Fleamont bluntly, and James chuckled.

“James, go and get me a quill, parchment, and ink,” said Euphemia with dignity.

“And the owl?” said James expectantly, standing.

“No, not the owl.” Euphemia’s eye gleamed with determination. “Not yet.”

Confused, James brought in the materials and they were set on the tiny wood table beside an equally confused Lily’s armchair. Euphemia took out her wand, placed it to Lily’s flat tummy, and placed her other hand on the quill perched over the parchment.

“Everything about the coming baby’s genetic makeup is decided hours after initial conception contact,” said Euphemia. “Everything from the baby’s gender to their genetic physical appearance and code is decided right away. Muggles don’t usually know all these things for months or even years -

“But wizards and witches are different. 

“It would take a Healer to tell you your exact due date. And we will have to book you an appointment at St Mungo’s Hospital. But figuring out things like the baby’s coming physical appearance and gender? That can be done through a magical detection spell at home. Since the information was already decided at first contact, and you're four weeks along, it’s already there - and we can detect it.

“Ironically, the most impossible thing for a Muggle is the easiest for a witch.”

Euphemia murmured something in Latin, one of the other ancient Pagan languages, and it was like a ripple moved from the wand tip through her body. The quill she had touched began scribbling on its own - and she lifted her hand away.

When the quill was finished, she put away her wand and took up the finished parchment with a critical eye. The entire room held their breath.

“Well. You can keep this, Lily, but I can tell you what it says right here and now. You are having a girl.” Euphemia smiled. “So it will be Ianthe Euphemia Potter, after all.”

Lily cheered and jumped up, hugging a stunned James.

“.... I’m having a daughter,” he said to himself, in for once quiet and utter disbelief. Then determination came over his features. “And I’m going to have to save her from the kind of teenage boy that _I_ was.”

Lily giggled and Fleamont smiled wryly.

“There’s more,” said Fleamont expectantly. “Come on, out with it, what will she look like?” He was trying admirably to disguise his eagerness.

This might, after all, be the only way he would ever know.

“Well, she’s a perfect blend of her parents,” said Euphemia, pleased, coughing slightly and hoarsely in between words. “Messy, wild curls of dark red hair. Almond shaped hazel eyes. High cheekbones and a pale face. A nice if female jawline.

“A very pretty girl,” Euphemia added fondly. “The hair color of course is Lily’s, but the hair texture is pure Potter woman. The eye shape is Lily’s, the eye color is James’s. The face shape is Lily’s, but the jawline is Potter and James.”

“No glasses?” James asked tentatively.

“No. Lily’s eyesight,” said Euphemia absently, still looking over the parchment.

James relaxed. “I never liked mine,” he muttered in admittance.

“I think they look nice,” said Lily, fond and concerned. “They give you that hot nerd look.”

“Wow. Thanks,” said James dryly, and Lily giggled. “Please don’t tell Sirius that.”

This time even James’s father laughed.

“Anyway,” said James, “it would be harder for a girl, wouldn’t it? Having glasses?”

“I suppose so,” Lily sighed. “Anyway, I think Ianthe sounds beautiful.” And she smiled, pleased, putting a fond hand to her stomach. “It seems real,” she whispered. “It feels real, now, like a person is really coming.”

“Yes, she sounds fabulous,” said James idly, pleased, putting his hands behind his head. “Well, of course she does, she’s our kid.”

Fleamont smiled. “That didn’t take long,” he said, looking over his family, but his voice was not gruff or mocking this time.

“We’re going to have to send out owl-mail cards announcing the pregnancy,” said Euphemia, proud and pleased. “Saying gender, name, all those lovely things. Fancy, and engraved, of course, moving writing and a moving family photograph. War given, we’ll have to put magical protections around the cards we’re sending out.”

She nodded to herself, frowning, her mind spinning away into work.

“Might as well announce in the same letter that Lily and I won’t be fighting for the Order anymore,” James sighed in admittance, accepting but not exactly pleased.

“We can… send one to my sister. My parents have passed, but…” Lily paused, then nodded. “Yes,” she decided firmly, “Petunia should have one. Even if we really don’t speak anymore.” At this, she looked sad.

“James,” said Fleamont quietly, and James leaned over so that only the two of them could hear. “Promise me Ianthe will be baptized. In the old Pagan, Druid way. Find a godparent for her. Please. And make sure our fortune goes to her.”

Fleamont looked up at James with big, pleading eyes. James had never seen his father so small and frail before.

“Yes, of course,” James promised, brow knit with concern, his second promise to the Potter grandparents concerning his daughter. “Yes, we’ll take care of her and protect her. Yes, she’ll be baptized in the ancient Pagan way and she’ll have a godparent. Yes, the Potter medicinal fortune and manor will go to her.

“All three of those things will be done,” he added, determined. “If we have to die doing them ourselves.”


End file.
